Hail Damage

Field of hail stones

Hail damages roofing (which includes shingle damage, holes through plastic turtle vents, damage to skylights, roof components, etc), siding, windows, storm windows, screens, guttering, sheds, A/C units, etc. Most of the time hail isn’t recognized by the untrained eye and takes years of experience to see it and assess it properly. Hail can puncture the shingle matting leading to future leaks. This is the reason insurance companies want to address hail damage claims immediately….to mitigate any future losses due to interior damage water intrusion, mold, wood rot etc.

We use what’s called the square test when assessing hail damage to roofs. This is done by marking out a 10’x10′ area and carefully inspecting the hail hits to the roofing within that area. Insurance companies vary as to how many hail hits they require within that square test to “total” a roof.

Hail is typically directional and comes from the west or southwest. We start our inspections on the west elevation or west slopes of the roofs to find the best damage first. We also first inspect “soft metals” such as furnace caps, fascia, guttering, A/C fins. If these items aren’t damaged it is most likely that roof isn’t damaged.

612.259.7177

Interesting Facts about Hail

Record hailstone from Vivian SD on July 23, 2010

Hail causes $1 billion in damage to crops and property each year.
The costliest hailstorm in the United States was in Fort Worth in May 1995. Total damages were $2 billion, with an estimated $1.1 billion of that attributed to hail damage.
One of the largest hail stones on record fell in Vivian, South Dakota on July 23, 2010. It measured 8 inches in diameter and weighed 1.93 pounds!
Cut in half, a hailstone has concentric rings like an onion, which reveal the number of times it traveled to the top of the storm before falling to Earth.
Hailstorms rarely last longer than 15 minutes. The median of the time span of a hail storm is about 6 minutes.